Reviews
August 2014
4th August
Album Review
4 Stars
A Sunny Day In Glasgow - Sea When Absent
A Sunny Day in Glasgow feeling rosy cheeked, fresh-faced and wide-eyed for the first time in their career.
Album Review
4 Stars
Adult Jazz - Gist Is
A record of intriguing, ear-catching pop music.
Album Review
3 Stars
Owl John - Owl John
An interesting insight into a accomplished musician’s repertoire.
Album Review
3 Stars
Spoon - They Want My Soul
The sound of a band coming to terms with their current state, their distinct past and foggy future combined like never before.
Album Review
4 Stars
Summer Camp - Beyond Clueless OST
An album that doesn’t celebrate teenage culture, but exposes the cracks in its facade.
Album Review
4 Stars
Talons - New Topographics
Not quite as loud, but just as enthrallingly intense.
11th August
Album Review
4 Stars
Childhood - Lacuna
As catchy as it is woozy.
Album Review
4 Stars
FKA Twigs - LP1
Clarity is shunned for something more confounding, more intoxicating.
Album Review
3 Stars
Grumbling Fur - Preternaturals
An album of slightly ramshackle, slightly eccentric psychedelic pop.
Album Review
3 Stars
The Gaslight Anthem - Get Hurt
The atmospheric, expansive sound signals a progression in in favour of a more nuanced approach.
18th August
Album Review
4 Stars
Benjamin Booker - Benjamin Booker
He pays homage to the greats rather than replicate them.
Album Review
2 Stars
Celebration - Albumin
An album which appears to lack the punch and creativity needed to be anything more than second rate.
Album Review
4 Stars
DZ Deathrays - Black Rat
Near 40 minutes of slow and sweaty seduction executed exquisitely by weeping guitar.
Album Review
3 Stars
Electric Würms - Musik, Die Schwer zu Twerk
Their six meticulously constructed psychedelic soundscapes that drag you along on their intoxicating journey are, more than anything, relentless.
Album Review
3 Stars
JJ - V
A consistently strong listen, albeit a somewhat uneventful one.
Album Review
2 Stars
Luke Sital-Singh - The Fire Inside
If he’s trying to say something significant, it’s all rather swamped by faux-poetics.
23rd August
Album Review
4 Stars
Raury - Indigo Child
His first step into the great unknown, it marks Raury out as one of the most exciting new talents around.
25th August
Album Review
2 Stars
Basement Jaxx - Junto
Only some parts equal the dizzy heights of their much younger contemporaries.
EP Review
4 Stars
Bloody Knees - Stitches
‘Stitches’ might not be for everyone, but it’s doing a bloody good job at trying.
Album Review
2 Stars
Cold Specks - Neuroplasticity
Too cold and distancing to be able to connect to.
Album Review
4 Stars
Cymbals Eat Guitars - Lose
Their most accessible and celebratory record to date.
Album Review
4 Stars
Dry The River - Alarms in the Heart
An album that rarely dips below being immensely enjoyable.
Album Review
3 Stars
J Mascis - Tied to a Star
A release for the hardcore fans.
EP Review
4 Stars
Mark Lanegan Band - No Bells On Sunday
Lanegan has deftly whetted the appetite for the autumn release of ‘Phantom Radio’ with these five tracks.
Album Review
4 Stars
Maybeshewill - Fair Youth
Maybeshewill have never sounded better.
Album Review
4 Stars
Merchandise - After The End
If the rhetoric around this record was about severe change, this is the rabbit in the hat, the proof that they don’t just talk the talk.
Album Review
3 Stars
Mozart’s Sister - Being
Mixed, fidgety, but rewarding.
Album Review
4 Stars
Royal Blood - Royal Blood
When it comes to noise they’re surfing a soundwave straight out of the hellmouth.
Album Review
3 Stars
Rustie - Green Language
A frustrating, yet undeniably fun listen.
Album Review
3 Stars
The Rentals - Lost In Alphaville
Really bloody lost in direction — but with several soaring, special moments.
Album Review
4 Stars
The Wytches - Annabel Dream Reader
Far more accomplished than a debut should be.
Album Review
4 Stars
Ty Segall - Manipulator
Something of a Ty Segall greatest hits, but with all new music.
